In 1998, T.
F. Cooper set out to write a series of short fiction
adaptations of the first Masters' minicomics, beginning with He-Man of the Vines and ending with
Raiders of Point Dread.
This conversation, originally done for Cooper's site,
gets you up close and personal with the author on every level. Now
that Cooper has announced his conclusion of the TALES, this in-depth
exploration of
the ideas that shaped and inspired his epic series take on a unique and
unexpected significance. No
question was off-limits. No stone was left unturned.

HMT: what is cooper's MOTU about?

****POP: its about a world
caught between light and dark, fear and hope.

HMT: you swiped that right out
from under me.

****POP: no, thats how i always
saw it unfolding. the fear and hope part is a big part of Eternia Lost, in my
opinion. the war between them and which has the upper hand.

HMT: the power.

****POP: aye the power.

HMT: aye?

****POP: aye.

HMT: well, blow me down

****POP: blow me?

HMT: nevermind. and 'no thank
you'.

****POP: LOL

HMT: it's weird having this
conversation, after hanging out with you and all the editing you've let me do these past years. i feel like i know everything.

****POP: you don't. i'm a woman.

HMT: are you kidding me?

HMT: you're really transgendered. no f-ing
way!

****POP: kidding.
scratching me stones as we speak.

HMT: GROSS! back to he-man.
there are no he-man-less scenes in your stories. why is that?

HMT: Is it because the stories
are written from he-man's perspective? you want us to see what he-man sees?

****POP: i want you to see
things unfolding the way he-man sees and feels them unfolding, and what he feels
and thinks is what centers the stories for me. the war in motu is a war that
begs the question will we live in fear or not? will we allow our fear to turn us
into beings like triklops, mer-man and the other beings serve [Skeletor], who
terrorize and murder out of fear of Skeletor's power - this fear that they are
powerless without him. or are we going to live a more hopeful and optimistic
existence, and that is a harder life to live - must be fought for and fiercely
protected.

HMT: wow. this is a revelation
for me, since i never knew that is how you see your evil warriors, as beings
living in fear. i always figured that it was more a survival of the fittest
thing for them, and that their strength came more from greed than fear. Darwin
would not agree with you.

****POP: i don't believe fear makes you
strong.
it is a weakness that can be exploited by enemies. the evil warriors are greedy,
but even greed is born of the fear we may have to do without or that we will
have less than we should. that fear is instinctive and some of us, the weaker
willed, allow that fear to dictate our actions.

HMT: you're talking about foreign
policy. that kind of fear shapes the foreign policy of many nations here in the
real world and really shapes the world we live in.

****POP: we do really horrible
things to people out of a fear it will be done to us first, and we have to
bugger them first you see. we have to stick them before they get us.

****POP: we look the other way,
while horrible things happen to others, thinking better them than me. then we
condemn them for being weak out of the shame that we did not stand up to their
transgressors, who are also OUR transgressors you see.

HMT: whoa. please continue.

****POP: we are ashamed of it i
think. we see real-life Skeletors right here on earth and watch them violate and
humiliate others and ultimately do nothing. we then come up with
convenient philosophies like hell take the hindmost and darwinism to justify our
fearful behavior. it gives us an excuse to sit on our arses while you're invaded
and say nothing against it. do nothing, but sit back and condemn your weakness.

HMT: i think we're secretly
ashamed of it. i think all of us have seen an unfair fight at least once, and
walked away while some poor guy got f-ed up or humiliated. i'll cop to that. so
part of your he-man's strength is his hope, faith that we'll all be okay.

****POP: there is strength in
hope i think. perhaps darwin would agree with me.

HMT: i think that is very lou
scheimer, really. i think that idea is at the core of the classic cartoon
he-man's appeal, wouldn't you agree?

****POP: oh absolutely. what
child wouldn't respond to that kind of optimism?

HMT: would you say that your
he-man is childlike in that sense?

****POP: childlike, but not
weak. he is more wed to his optimism and hope than a child, who becomes
disillusioned with it. he has a childlike faith in his goddess i think.

HMT: heuay?

****POP: yes. mighty teela also.
heuay is destiny and teela is order. his faith in their collective power assures
him that the fate of mankind is not a wild, scary random thing, but measured and
in strong hands.

HMT: explain he-man's
relationship with heuay.

****POP: i'm not sure exactly
what you mean.

****POP: out with it!

HMT: you know what i'm going to
ask.

****POP: i think i do.

HMT: they have a sexual
relationship, right?

HMT: the tournament in which your
he-man won his powers was a contest to see who gets to bang heuay.

****POP: part of his worship of
heuay is being intimate with her. Making love to her. the religious significance
of his being 'heuay's man' or he-man is his intimacy with destiny and truth. she
is also a goddess of truth. the vulnarians believe that a man who knows truth
intimately is a righteous man. the sex between them is spiritual and very
beautiful.

****POP: he-wee - haha! it is a way of
illustrating how removed his sensibilities are from those of Eternians living
in cities. i also wanted something about him that made conan seem tame by
comparison.

HMT: that's what i thought was so
brilliant about it. so how BIG is he?

****POP: big as a crochet
mallet.

HMT: is that all?

****POP: crocodile?

HMT: LOL

****POP: a boy's forearm.

HMT: killing me!

****POP: that's what his last
sexual conquest said afterwards. "You are killing me, he-man! more please."

HMT: alright, alright! where does
he-man's strength really come from?

****POP: actually, it is [the goddess]
teela who binds the collective strength of his tribe to him. he is
already the strongest and fastest of the vulnarians, when he wins the
tournament. mighty teela gives him this added power, when he has proven himself
worthy and when heuay has deemed him righteous.

HMT: but in HE-MAN of the VINES,
he doesn't receive this power until after his entire tribe has been slaughtered.
does that mean their massacre was fated to be? that they must die, before he can
use their strength to protect mankind.

****POP: yes and no. when teela
gives him this power in 'vines', it is meant to show where he gets his strength
from - that's all. i think i made that much clearer in the original version of
this story, where Morgonymyr [the dragon that kills He-Man's tribesmen in
Cooper's "He-Man of the Vines"] was called 'Morningstar'. to answer your
question as best i can, the scene in 'vines' is NOT the first time he receives
his strength, but is meant to show how this amazing, magical strength is
something he calls upon only in battle - in an act of justice.

HMT: he isn't just strong all the
time?

****POP: that would make all of
the sex he has with mortal women pretty uncomfortable for them, don't you think. he wouldn't
be a very popular bloke at all. the strength comes to him, when he needs it.

HMT: does he have to pray for it,
like in VINES?

****POP: not always aloud, but
he willfully summons this strength.

HMT: BY THE POWERS OF GRAYSKULL!!!

****POP: the he-man i'm writing
has said that only once. it is the incantation with which Teela first binds the
collective strength of his tribesmen to his body. again, i think my revision of
'vines' muddled that a bit. to sum it up nicely, he-man is guided by heuay and
strengthened by mighty teela.

HMT: do you want to talk about
what happened to the original version? how you lost your first MOTU
stories online?

****POP: hmm (thinking) ..no.

HMT: fine. you once told me that
your he-man's
battles are offerings to teela -- that he worships teela through his battles. i
get it, but explain it anyway for our readers.

****POP: he-man's battles must
be just battles, always - never waged for his own pride. it's an arthurian
concept actually. he dedicates these battles to teela, as she is the goddess of
justice.

****POP: he's fear and more
specifically the fear of destruction. the dread of it that makes us prisoners of
our fear and enslaves us to people, who use fear to control others. he's a
physical manifestation of that fear, an incarnation of spiritual destruction.

HMT: you must write a self-help
book.

****POP: haha. you suggested
that a week ago as i recall.

HMT: yes i did. fear equals death in your
work?

****POP: you could say that.
fear kills a part of our spirits that is very difficult to resurrect. when you
think about Eternia really, really hard, as you and i tend to do, this is the
only significance a being like Skeletor could have to real people. you would
never fear some evil mojo man, like keldor, as much as you would fear evil
incarnate, the Devil.

HMT: very much in the stephen
king tradition.

****POP: you remembered. like
the Dark man in 'The Stand', he is powerful, because mortals have made him so.
if you've read the Stand, you understand exactly how my Skeletor comes to power
and stays there.

****POP: he rules through the
priest-kings, who are these evil warlords that keep the dark hemisphere
populations terrorized and without hope. that is the real darkness, i think.

HMT: that is also the idea at
work in twin peaks, another guilty pleasure we share. this idea of an
unseen evil lurking on the edge of civilization, waiting to conquer us.

****POP: the evil in the woods,
yes. the BLACK
LODGE! boo! very twin peaksie. very hawthorne also.

HMT: will dale cooper ever meet
he-man in one of your stories.

****POP: i rather think he
already has. in his dreams of course. dale cooper used his dreams to fight evil
in the mortal world, remember.

HMT: and there were always
dwarves, giants and white horses and other imagery from european mythology in
them, just as there is in MOTU.

****POP: i miss our old pal,
don't you? he was a damn fine man. mr. lynch must find some way to resurrect
him.

HMT: back to Skeletor.
what's your problem with keldor story?

****POP: don't make me the bad
guy! you hate that bad uncle business as much as i do. uncle skeletor touched me
in a bad place! search your feelings, luke - i am your uncle!

HMT: LOL. you nailed me. i hate it too.

****POP: you hate it because its
the stupidest thing you ever heard. it's so derivative of 'star wars', so brazen, that it defies the laws of artistic integrity!

HMT: i felt betrayed by it.
sold out. what about grayskull?

****POP: what about grayskull?
my castle grayskull?

HMT: What's the big secret?
what's inside?

****POP: bagels.

HMT: BAGELS?!

****POP: bagels. gourmet coffee!
a haberdashery. what did you expect?

****POP: i think the hiltons own
grayskull now.

HMT: PORN! where's the
damn porn?

HMT: the grayskull HILTON!
i love it!

****POP: it's all revealed in
[my fic adaptation of] 'ordeal of man-e-faces'. not all of grayskull's secrets,
but perhaps the biggest secret.

HMT: i LOVED that story.
Loved it! it may be your best fic to date. now, what's going on with
your name?

****POP: t f cooper?

****POP: just a nod to david
lynch. i was t f 'brooks' before in case you've forgotten.

****POP: no. i'm not anti-shera
and have never been. [****POP is] one of my chatroom handles - one of the
naughtier chatrooms, if you must know.

HMT: you are a very unusual man, mr. cooper. give us one thing about your Mineternia that would shock and
awe us, please.

****POP: teela's a barfly - a
real rummy who pops off her top in a pub and dances on the tables.

HMT: come on. one thing.

****POP: lemon juice is
wonderful on pizza stains. and orko is gay - just look at that dress! that hat!

HMT: coop! one thing!
before i collapse from exhaustion.

****POP: to answer one of your
questions as honestly, but indirectly as i can, there is no castle grayskull.

HMT: huh?

****POP:
it's nothing but a pile of rubble in reality, kept alive and powerful by the
hopes of all Eternians that something stands between them and oblivion. that's
why skeletor wants so desperately to conquer it! if he succeeds, all hope is
lost, and the souls of an entire world are his to feed on. it is also why he-man
draws upon its power. through grayskull, he taps into the power of mythical
belief and legend.

HMT: deep
$#*+, man. thanks.

If you haven't
read T. F. Cooper's
TALES of MINETERNIA, you should . In a fandom that has seen little
change or originality in nearly seven years, a more unique and awe-inspiring
vision of He-Man's world will be hard to find. He is also the ONLY Masters fan
fiction author to attempt adapting the minicomics to novellas.